Professional Engineers' Club (Exeter)

Joseph Locke FRS (1805-60)

President of the Institution of Civil Engineers 1858-59.
Member of Parliament and Lord of the Manor of Honiton.
The plaque is fixed to the east wall of the old Angel Inn, High
Street, Honiton.
The plaque was unveiled by Gwilym Roberts CBE, a former President of
the Institution of Civil Engineers on Wednesday, 11 March 2009.
OS ref: ST163008

Making his home in Honiton, Devon at the latter part of a long
and industrious career, Joseph Locke was one of three giants of
engineering to whom the beginnings of Britain's railway network
can be attributed. His associates were Brunel and Stephenson, so
famous now that Locke is sometimes, unfortunately, referred to
as the 'forgotten engineer'. His achievements are equally
impressive however, particularly as so many were completed
during the very early stages of an illustrious career.

Joseph was born on 9th August 1805 at Attercliffe, near
Sheffield, Yorkshire, the youngest of four children to William
Locke, a colliery manager. He attended Barnsley Grammar School
and then at the age of thirteen, presumably because of his
father's background, went on to become a pupil of William
Stobart, a colliery viewer for two years. The colliery viewer's
duties are those of a manager who would be responsible for the
day-to-day running of the pit and the hiring and firing of
workers.

At the age of eighteen he was articled as a pupil engineer to
George Stephenson, the father of Robert Stephenson, at his works
in Newcastle and eventually was appointed as one of Stephenson's
assistants in the construction of the Stockton and Darlington
plus the Liverpool and Manchester Railways. In a letter to
Robert Stephenson he once wrote, ‘Whilst surveying, what do you
think I did? Only what others have done, fell in love with
engineering!’.

Such was his interest and enthusiasm in this new manner of
transportation that, along with Stephenson, he published, at the
age of only twenty four, a pamphlet titled ‘Observations on the
Comparative Merits of Locomotive and Fixed Engines’ which
concluded in favour of locomotive engines. The question at the
time was whether it was better to have steam locomotives on the
rails pulling carriages or to have stationary engines at the
track side operating a cable which pulled the carriages rather
like the trolley cars' arrangement in San Fransisco today. It
would seem that it was this grounding that really inspired him
to devote the rest of his life to this new form of
transportation.

It was during this part of his career that he was involved in a
fatal accident. The grand opening of the Liverpool and
Manchester Railway in 1830 was marked by the attendance of Prime
Minister the Duke of Wellington and the local MP William
Huskisson who had championed the construction of this railway.
The Duke and Huskisson were standing by the Duke's carriage from
where they had been reviewing the carriages and trains paraded
for the opening. As they stood on a railway line to watch,
rather a dangerous thing to do even in those days, the steam
locomotive Rocket believed to have been driven by Locke, then
twenty five years old, approached along the line. The Duke
fortunately managed to get clear but, not realising that a steam
train cannot stop suddenly, Huskisson was trapped by the leg and
this resulted in injuries so severe that he died a short time
later. He became, therefore, the first death in the country by
this new form of transportation although no blame was put on
Locke. The Duke, incidentally, did not travel on a train again
until thirteen years later.

Whilst working for George Stephenson on the Liverpool and
Manchester railway Locke developed the use of double-headed
rails held in chairs mounted on wooden sleepers, and this became
the usual form of track on British railways for some time. He
also discovered errors in the survey of one of the tunnels,
which led to a difference of views with Stephenson who had a
tendency to delegate work to inexperienced assistants. It was
this disagreement, plus the admiration of the directors of the
railway company, that led Locke to branch out on his own.
Considering he was only twenty seven years old at the time, this
was an incredibly brave stance to take.

Locke's first major project as an independent civil engineer,
after the completion of the Liverpool and Manchester railway,
was the first trunk railway line called the Grand Junction
Railway. At eighty two miles long, it connected Birmingham and
the Liverpool and Manchester line via Wolverhampton, Stafford,
Crewe and Warrington. He surveyed the land, designed the route
and line of the railway, including necessary bridges, viaducts,
cuttings and embankments and then supervised construction. The
line was duly opened in 1837 when he was only thirty two years
of age.

Locke soon realised the importance of Crewe as an important
junction in the railway system and not only designed the railway
works, but most of the town itself! This major project
comprising one hundred underbridges, five viaducts, two tunnels
and two aqueducts was opened for passengers and light goods on
4th July 1837. The sheer scale of the enterprise, designed and
supervised by somebody aged only thirty two on its completion,
is quite incredible when compared to the amount of planning and
construction that goes into building a length of motorway these
days. Locke was to help prove that railway travel was not as
dangerous as forecast for some harbingers of doom believed that
at speeds of over 30 mph milk would turn sour and even people's
lungs would collapse!

Sixteen days later the London to Birmingham line opened which
meant that this new form of rail transportation linked London,
Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool.

From these auspicious beginnings Locke began to make a name for
himself in the country. He was given commissions to design the
Sheffield, Ashton-under-Lyne and Manchester railway which was
opened in 1845 when he was forty years of age, the Lancaster and
Preston Junction Railway, and also the line from Lancaster to
Carlisle and onwards to Glasgow and Aberdeen. He developed a
reputation for building straight railway lines, avoiding
expensive tunneling whenever possible. Although this meant in
some cases adopting gradients that were rather uneconomical in
terms of running costs, he quickly realised that locomotives
could be built to overcome this problem.

Such was his reputation that he received commission for railways
in the South of England including the London to Southampton line
which included several bridges over the Thames. One, the Barnes
Bridge built in 1849, is now famous as one of the landmarks in
the closing stages of the Oxford and Cambridge University Boat
Race held each year.

Because of his achievements he became closely acquainted with
both Robert Stephenson and Isambard Kingdom Brunel and, with
them, also associated with the Institution of Civil Engineers.

Not content to work just in Britain, Locke then proceeded to set
his sights abroad with project work in Spain, creating the
railway line between Barcelona and Mattaro then in Holland with
the Dutch-Rhenish railway. He was approached to construct a
railway line between Paris and Rouen, and on to Le Havre. This
was followed by the construction of a railway line from Nantes
to Cherbourg and Caen.

It is interesting to note that the actual construction was
performed partly by gangs of British navvies brought over
especially for the job. Locke did this for one but nevertheless
very important reason. He found that he would not be able to
meet the contractual terms for the overall work if he was to use
French labour only since they were not skilled in the form of
construction planned. British workmen however had had a number
of years experience in railway construction, particularly in the
use of the then modern equipment designed specially for this
type of work. Needless to say, it did cause some comment in the
areas where railway construction was undertaken due to the high
wages then paid to British workers compared to French labourers.
However, it was soon realised that the British navvies were also
used to being well fed and consequently produced a far better
output than their French counterparts. The upshot was that these
benefits were realised and the French worker began to enjoy an
improved lifestyle. He also noted that the French utilised
female labour in the operation of their railways, such as
opening and shutting level crossings and in the manning of
country railway stations. A practice which, he commented, would
be thought questionable in Britain. How times have changed!

Locke also found that in creating a new railway system in
France, the French type of locomotive was inferior to its
British counterpart. He saw the need to build not only new
locomotives to a better standard, but also that these
locomotives would need to be repaired. Consequently he arranged
for the establishment of new workshops at Rouen, which became
the main supplier of engines, wagons, and carriages for most of
the railway companies in France. For his work in France he was
awarded the Grand Cross of the Legion d'Honneur by King Louis
Phillipe and was created an Officer of the Order by Emperor
Napoleon III although regrettably, he was never publicly
honoured in Britain.

When he was forty two years old he bought the manor of Honiton,
and became Member of Parliament for the town. Although he did
not make a great name for himself whilst in the House of
Commons, he used his experience for technical matters when these
arose in the House and at these times he was listened to as one
who had particular knowledge of his subject. He also served as a
Select Committee Member. He had already become a member of the
Institution of Civil Engineers when he was twenty five years old
and such was his renown for the work he had undertaken that he
was elected to the position of President of that Institution at
fifty three years of age.

The last work that he was responsible for was a long cherished
project of the extension of the railway to Exeter. However, he
never saw the completion of this project because, tragically, he
died suddenly in September 1860. Whilst on a shooting holiday in
Scotland he suffered a severe infection of the leg, which he had
injured previously whilst working in France. His wife Phoebe
dedicated Locke Park in Barnsley to his memory and the estate
features both a statue and the Locke Tower.

There is no doubt that he possesed extraordinary driving force
and foresight. He was responsible for the construction of a
network of railway lines in Britain and also on the continent,
especially in France, which are still the basis of the railway
system today. It would seem that he had a particular quality of
mind that gained the confidence of capitalists, so important in
the financing of railways at that time. He was also renowned for
his ability to complete his railway lines not only on time but
also within budget, something today that civil engineers still
strive to do, but sometimes find difficult for very many
reasons.

It is a strange quirk of fate that Joseph Locke was born within
two years of both Robert Stephenson and Isambard Kingdom Brunel
and all three died within two years of each other. As The Times
printed on his death, ‘He may be said to have completed the
triumvirate of the engineering world’.